Lycra Makes You Act Illegally

"When we put sport into cycling, we forget both traffic laws and safety equipment.

Maybe the neon-coloured cycling jersey is a little tight around the stomach, but in the head it's easy to imagine you're on your way to a historical stage win in the Tour de France.

The interest in hobby cycling moves up a gear when the French race rolls over the tv screens with dangerous sprints with built-in risk for crashing and the dramatic mountain stages where even the strongest crawl to a halt.

But when we as hobby cyclists on every level pull on our cycling shorts, jersey, helmet and sunglasses and roll out onto the Danish roads, we apparently forget that the usual rules for cyclists still apply to us.

'When hobby cyclists [ed: motionscyklister in Danish, which means 'exercise cyclists'] put on all their gear there is an unfortunate tendency to not worry about the rules and to respect others. It's unlucky, because they're very visible in the traffic', says Vice Police Inspector Kristian Thomsen from East Jutland Police."

Visible indeed. When most Citizen Cyclists look like this, the lycra crowd do stand out. Even just cycling around Copenhagen, I am slightly faster than most and overtake more cyclists than people overtaking me. Still, I'm only rolling around at about 20 km/h and not breaking into a sweat. Who are the people who blow past me? People with gear who tsk tsk those who are riding casually along. Muttering and swearing under their breath and shaking their heads demonstratively at every moment they are forced to touch their brakes.

I live in Brisbane and that bike path is actually a massive bridge with a 5% gradient each way (total length of about 2km!).

To stick to a speed limit of 10km/h on any bike is going to require non-stop braking all the way down. I wonder how many brake failures and tyre blowouts are going to occur on a hot summer's day here.

I've noticed that on the coldest/wettest of mornings here when I do my 22km commute to work on my 'dutch' bike, I see no other cyclists. On fair weather days I pass plenty of them (they in the opposite direction) racing about, not actually going anywhere...

It is all well and good to cycle as sport but here in Australia it is seen as the only practical use for a bicycle which is a crying shame.

people in cars do it too. Did the speed limits work, only a bit. it is in human nature and it is the people wearing the clothes, not the clothes wearing the people. I know lots of people who do not wear lycra here in sydeny that openly disobey the road rules to. To prove it statistically you need to do a scientific study.

btw I ride both with and without lycra, depending on the circumstance and dislike it when people who think I should be one or the other.

I have frequently seen people in regular street outfit run red lights in Copenhagen. I have even seen people avoid doing a direct left turn, instead riding straight across, then going left and running the red light. Weird.

Kilometres cycled by Copenhageners so far today

Copenhagenize.com is the blog of Copenhagenize Design Company. Online since 2007 and highlighting the cycling life in Copenhagen and around the world.

40 years ago Copenhagen was just as car-clogged as anywhere else but now 41% of the population arriving at work or education do so on bicycles, from all over the Metro area. 55% of Copenhageners themselves use bicycles each day. They all use over 1000 km of bicycle lanes in Greater Copenhagen for their journeys. Copenhagenizing is possible anywhere.